Updated Nightstands with DIY Chalkpaint

If you’ve been hanging around here for a little while, you might recall that I wanted to change the color of our nightstands. I had painted the drawer fronts in a fun bright teal (Glidden’s Deepest Aqua) and the base of the cabinets went a light gray. However, I never sealed the grey paint and after a move and some use, these cabinets were looking a little worse for the wear. The look also did not work with our new wooden bed AT ALL.

After a little bit of drama to get the paint color I wanted & then some drama trying to get the paint to cover up the old paint, here is where we are today! Our nightstands are finally coated in some Behr “Tide Pools” with three layers of poly to protect the paint this time!

This is where we started. The grey and the wood tones just didn’t look right to me. I didn’t want to go white with the nightstands & the thought of re-doing the drawers made me want to run away. So I looked to our brightly patterned curtains to find inspiration for a color that would work with the bright teal drawers & I decided that a very light aqua would do the trick.

After much back and forth (and a giant stack of paint chips) I decided on Behr’s Country Mist for the bases. Unfortunately, Home Depot could not mix my chosen color into a sample size amount. Boo! I even tried at two different Home Depots in the hopes that the first guy was just incompetent. When the second guy couldn’t figure it out either, I had him mix up a sample size of Behr’s Tide Pools instead – the next color down on the paint chip card.

Then this happened…

Yup, the paint bled right through my beautiful light aqua paint. I contemplated sanding everything down, and re-priming the bases. The I considered stripping the nightstands, re-priming, and trying again. Both of these options seemed like they would require lots of work, supplies I didn’t have on hand, and lots of patience. Then I remembered that chalk paint is supposed to have magical properties when it comes to covering up. Since I already had all the supplies to make DIY chalk paint, I decided to take a chance. I mixed up a batch and lo-and-behold it covered all those ugly bleed-through spots!

After two coats of the DIY chalk paint (with a light sanding with 220 grit sandpaper in between), I did three coats of glossy wipe on poly on the nightstands (also with a light sanding with 220 grit sandpaper between coats). We let it cure for about 48 hours and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out!

Here’s a look at the room now.

You can see how I made those double sided cushion covers here. The chevron art is just some chevron fabric wrapped over a larger canvas and stapled in the back. The lamps are from Ikea. The coffee sack cushion is from World Market (about a year ago). The duvet cover is also from Ikea (a long time ago)

My chalk paint recipe comes from Sharon at Elizabeth and Co. I follow her recipe exactly and it works like a charm. She also uses Behr Paint and Primer in one, so that’s what I stick with. You can seal the chalk paint with wax or poly. I already had poly, so that’s what I used.

What a great post! SO glad to have learned about the ‘magical’ properties of milk paint- i didn’t know that it is that good at coverage. Really great finished project! Thanks so much for sharing at Give Me the Goods Monday LInk Party!
Amy @ http://www.commona-myhouse.blogspot.com

The night stands look great! And creating your own chalk paint to get better coverage was a brilliant idea. I think I would’ve just cried and they’d still be sitting unfinished in my garage. The room looks amazing and I love the lamps. 🙂

Thanks Danielle! I was very close to crying. I think getting these done had a lot to do with the fact that I see them every night (since they’re next to our bed) and I was tired of looking at the unfinished product! Those lamps are Ikea – I’d loved them for a while, and when the price dropped last year, I had to scoop them up!